| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on
to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds;
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow,
and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
Second Inaugural Address |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: the prostration of the larger animal species an unseen
insect world was busy in all the fullness of life.
In two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths the
whole distance from Alderworth to her own home, where a
little patch of shepherd's-thyme intruded upon the path;
and she sat down upon the perfumed mat it formed there.
In front of her a colony of ants had established a
thoroughfare across the way, where they toiled a never-ending
and heavy-laden throng. To look down upon them was
like observing a city street from the top of a tower.
She remembered that this bustle of ants had been in
Return of the Native |
